One of the main challenges of the agro-food industry sustainable waste management by “zero-waste” model is the application of the circular management strategy, including development of innovative waste transformation techniques. Agro-food waste transformation into carriers for enzyme immobilization clearly represent one of such techniques, while replacement of chemical catalysts with immobilized enzymes might solve the issues of energy efficiency and environmental acceptability. On the other hand, process economic cost-effectiveness is highly dependent on the immobilized enzyme price. Whether the agro-food waste transformation could result with cost effective enzyme carriers for lipase immobilization, and subsequent development of immobilised lipases of desirable operational properties for use in the biocatalytic production, is the question this project aiming to answer. In this respect, carriers of desirable operational properties and high immobilization capacity will be prepared from selected waste: eggshells, spent coffee grounds and brown onion skin followed by subsequent immobilization of Pseudomonas fluorescens and Burkholderia cepacia lipases using various immobilization techniques. Biochemical and operational properties of free and immobilized lipases will be used for the selection of developed immobilized lipases of the greatest efficiency, which will be tested for operational functionality in the selected reactions of acidolysis, hydrolysis and transesterification. The final proof will be confirmed by industrial scale techno-economic analysis simulation, as well as life cycle analysis.

All activities provided in this project are aimed at the end goal/result the development of immobilized lipases with highly desirable properties that can be applied in the long term biocatalytic production, all for the purpose of approaching the concept of sustainable development.